Rinus VeeKay Starting 2022 Season Strong For ECR | IndyCar

The 2021 season was one that Rinus VeeKay would love to forget. The problem with that is that it would erase his lone win in the NTT IndyCar Series. It was essentially a tale of two halves for the Ed Carpenter Racing driver. Oddly enough, 2022 has started out eerily similar to last season.

VeeKay finished 6th in the season-opener at St Petersburg, which is exactly where he finished in the first race of last season. The first seven races in 2021 went very well for the 21-year old. He had three top-ten finishes in the first four races, then got his first career win on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course. He followed that up by qualifying on the front row for the Indianapolis 500 where he finished 8th.

The next two events came at Belle Isle, where he finished 2nd and 18th in the pair of races. That was his season in a nutshell.

VeeKay led 71 total laps in the first six races, but never led another lap for the rest of the season. His average finishing position over the final eight races was just 20.3 with a best-finish of 16th at Mid-Ohio.

Following the weekend at Belle Isle, VeeKay broke his collar bone in a bicycle accident, which forced him to miss the race at Road America. Although he recovered and was able to race the next round at Mid-Ohio, there was still something that was off. He wasn’t performing at the same level that everyone saw during the first half of the season.

VeeKay did not want to blame his injury, as he does not like making excuses for his performance.

“I missed Road America. Mid-Ohio, I wasn’t 100 percent. I was happy to be back in the car, but I wasn’t 100 percent yet. The rest of the races I had no problems with the collarbone. I think the biggest problem was, as a team, we were just struggling a little bit getting up to pace, showing up fast.”